Nuffield Foundation awards £250k to enhance PolicyEngine UK

PolicyEngine has received a £251,296 grant from the Nuffield Foundation to enhance our UK tax-benefit microsimulation model. The one-year project will improve the comprehensiveness, accuracy, and accessibility of PolicyEngine UK, expanding its capabilities while growing its user community.

The funding will support several major expansions to PolicyEngine UK's modelling capabilities, including:

• Creation of representative micro-datasets for each local authority and constituency
• Integration of all childcare subsidies and major public service spending, including education, NHS, adult social care, and travel subsidies at the household level
• Development of an open dashboard validating PolicyEngine's outputs against other microsimulation models
• Implementation of user-centric, AI-capable design improvements

"Tax-benefit microsimulation is essential for understanding the impacts of fiscal policy, yet most models are proprietary or expensive," said Max Ghenis, CEO of PolicyEngine. "With the Nuffield Foundation's support, we'll make these tools more comprehensive and accessible to inform critical policy discussions across the UK."

The project includes extensive community engagement through training workshops and a user symposium, helping policy professionals and other stakeholders leverage PolicyEngine's capabilities. This builds on PolicyEngine's existing adoption by think tanks, academics, and parliamentarians.

PolicyEngine's enhanced UK model will remain free and open-source, advancing our mission to democratise policy analysis tools. Organisations interested in using or contributing to PolicyEngine can learn more at policyengine.org/uk.